X-Message-Number: 11511
From: 
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 14:42:30 EDT
Subject: The tallest midget

Hugh Hixon's recent comment on the Flynn Effect (rising measured IQs over 
recent generations) has had some comment; here are a couple more.

1. More schooling doesn't necessarily raise IQ significantly, and IQ tests 
don't succeed well in separating potential from learning; and students learn 
how to prepare for IQ tests as well as achievement tests; and, as others have 
noted, IQ tests do not necessarily measure everything that is important nor 
balance the facets measured; and as immigrants become Americanized, the 
cultural bias in IQ tests becomes less important; and nowadays more people 
have more exposure to opportunity that is conducive to mental development.

2. The actual trend in IQ, nevertheless, is probably downward. In earlier 
times you had to be a lot smarter in some ways to get by--certainly you 
needed a better memory when there were fewer books and maps etc., and you 
needed more innate talent when there were fewer available mentors and 
training courses etc. And in ancient times the most capable males sired far 
more than the average number of children, which doesn't happen now. In recent 
times there has been a tendency for the most ignorant, which partly 
correlates with the least intelligent, to propagate most rapidly, and the 
penalty for incompetence is no longer death. 

But the important thing is that none of this matters much. The best of us now 
can only brag that we are among the taller midgets. Natural evolution will 
soon have ended, to be succeeded by conscious development and improvement, 
both in the species and in individuals. By the time the earlier cryonics 
patients are revived, there will probably be thorough understanding and 
control of intellectual and emotional capabilities and development, and all 
of us will have available the resources and traits of the best of us.

One might hazard a guess that many forms of competitiveness will die out. 
Anyone will be able to excel at anything, by paying the price of 
specialization--but who will want to put all his time, effort, and resources 
into (say) the ability to put a shot somewhat farther, just to be the 
champion shot-putter, humanoid class, super-heavyweight division? Who will 
want to spend his time accumulating extra possessions, when anyone's 
general-purpose thinking and actuating machine can provide (within wide 
limits) anything he wants (including the best advice based on the latest 
decision theory models and database) whenever he wants it? Who will try to 
dominate others when he knows that almost all of those billions of others 
have resources about equal to his, and they might be annoyed?  And of course, 
who will engage in acts of desperation, or take imprudent chances, or offend 
his neighbors, when he sees ahead an open-ended vista of opportunity and 
coexistence?

O course, getting from here to there is a bit tricky, but some of us think 
the prize is worth the effort.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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